Three views: Three...

And finally; Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC20EIII


This is a very succinct post... 


If you have any recent Nikon long glass, AFS or the older AFI, and you need some more reach, or want a narrower depth of field, or apparent closer focussing, get this. Ditch any other 2x 'converters, including older TC20E versions, because this makes them look like bottle-bottoms.  It's that good!


Like all the TC-E converters, it will only mount onto certain lenses - basically that's AFI/AFS types from the 105VR, 70-200/80-200AFS, then 200/f2 and up. It maintains full metering with all such lenses, and will still permit autofocus with the f2.8 lenses - like all 2X teleconverters it robs the lens of two stops of light, f2.8 becoming f5.6 etc. 


(NB. although Nikon state the minimum aperture for their AF system to work is f5.6, in good light I have seen that it will allow focus with f4 lenses - effective f8 - but probably not to be entirely relied on).


Briefly, it gives very good results wide-open, and improves further stopped down one stop. As is usual, the reduced maximum aperture does make the AF "think" a little more but it remains effective and surefooted, and the VR works as normal. It's a bit pricier than the other TC-E models, but much cheaper than owning a 400+... Certainly I find that the 300 f2.8VR plus TC14EII, TC17EII and the new TC20EIII covers my needs well enough now.

70-200 f2.8G AFS Mk1 + TC20EIII, at 200mm f2.8 (equiv. 400mm f5.6). My little dog, peering in through the back door. This is a 1000 pixel-wide crop out of the original (though it's displaying smaller than 100% here). Remember, this is WIDE-OPEN, on a ZOOM lens. On the 300mm, stopped down one stop to f8 for cricket this summer, this is like having the old manual 600 f5.6AI back - with AF, Matrix Metering and VR!

Booster stage.
 I can't justify the vast expense of a 600mm, but this adds versatility to my 300 f2.8
AND it gives good results wide-open, which the old TC20E11 struggled to match with
the lens stopped down to f11. It goes in the bag day-to-day too, as it also works well on the
70-200 f2.8 shown here.

This isn't a company buy - I stumped up my own cash for this, too!

Three views: Two...

One I do like - Nikon 24-120mm f4G AFS

This came to me with the company D7000, where it's roughly a 36-180 on the cropped sensor. The original version Nikon produced was a screwdriver-drive one, f3.5-f5.6, and was replaced with an AFS model with the same variable maximum aperture.

I've no personal experience of the old AFS version, but trawling around the internet shows that it's not well-regarded in the Internet Nikon User world, especially by the full-frame FX'ers. I confess I wonder how much of the dislike is based on just graphs and figures, since the Mk1 70-200 f2.8 AFS also gets something of a slating (corner sharpness, vignetting) by many internet full-frame users. I DO have one of those and unless I'm lucky to have a particularly good one, mine is nice on my D3 bodies.

However, the new f4 version of the 24-120 sets out to address those issues. And I like it a lot.

Nikon's "AF-S Nikkor 24-120 f/4G ED VR" (phew). Nice.

More after the break

Three views: One...

This is not a review site – RagSnapper doesn’t do those, so there’s no test charts, MTF graphs or marks out of 10.

What this is, is my opinion that I’ve built up of some new bits of gear after using them in the field for work and for my own pictures. They are just that; my opinion based on the way I work and use them, so feel free to disagree if you’ve used these and come to a different conclusion…

First up, Nikon's D7000:

I’ve mentioned this in a few blogs previously, as I have one issued to me by work. The idea is that it lets the photographers begin shooting video for the website, so this is a pilot trial. The downside is, as it always has been since the idea was broached, that we’ve got no way of sending files of any size to the recipients. We only need VGA for the website, but because of the thought that we might pass on newsworthy footage to TV media, the material is shot at 1080p HD. Even a 10 second clip is 10mb+, so a handful of those can add up to 100mb. That needs an office to send them from, even then it won’t be quick and you’ve got to get to an office. At the moment, sending on the road is possible but only by resizing and compressing the original material using software (Apple’s iMovie or Quicktime X) that’s on MY laptop, not the company’s. So really, apart froma few test clips to see if it works, we are no further forward with video.

As a camera, I broadly like what I see off the sensor, but...

Nikon's D7000. Nice images, but not feeling the love...

More after the break

Grasscutting...

As I'd be otherwise occupied on raceday, I decided to take advantage of being on annual leave AND the unseasonal weather to get some suitable pictures for printing from qualifying day at Brands Hatch for the penultimate round of the British Touring Car Championship.

I'd originally wanted to get the cars riding the kerbs on the entry to Surtees, but as they were on the GP circuit for this meeting the racing line is different, so I walked round to the exit of the corner, where they sometimes ride the kerbs on their way out to Pilgrims Drop.

Dave Newsham takes the grassy line with his Seat Leon, British Touring Car Championship free practice, 

Brands Hatch, Saturday 1st October 2011.   

Nikon D3, 300mm f2.8 + TC17E2 converter (= 500mm), 1/500th @ f9, ISO 200

Picture: © Andy Payton

Dave, you're supposed to be the OTHER side of the kerbing!

He's NOT the messiah, he's...

Or: "47 seconds with Michael Palin"


So much for weekly updates... Oh well.

Got talked into doing an extra day a couple of weeks ago, as it seems we ran out of freelancers on a Sunday (I should correct this to "ran out of freelancers who could do the job"!) when the new season of paper-sponsored youth football league kicked off.

What it did mean is that I had the rare privilege of being tasked to get a pic of TV presenter, actor and ex-Python Michael Palin. There was a weekend of local history, heritage and art presentations going on on Sheppey, called "Promenade". I'd spent Saturday at some of these, and on Sunday Michael Palin was to give a talk at Sheppey Little Theatre about the countries and, especially, buildings that had caught his eye on his world-wide travels. I should point out that Michael's son Will lives in Sheerness, so he had obviously been charmed on his visits by some of the architecture that still exists around the town.

As you would expect, he was very in demand by fans and the local journalists after his talk, but he had agreed to do a joint interview with the two papers and the local radio station and me and colleague Rob Canis, working for the "rival" paper, hoped we'd be allowed a window to get a picture. It was supposed to happen, but reporters sometimes think our job is just "point and click"...

Fellow photographer Rob Canis, early on in the

pre-production set-up we both did as Michael Palin 

talked to the reporters. I prefer the theatre without 

the striplights switched on, but that's the joys of D3

usage... Smile, Rob!

More after the break...

The search for (soft) proof...

As I've mentioned previously here, I shoot JPEG for work (mostly) but occasionally switch to raw for tricky conditions and almost always for sport. My personal work, such as it is, is also shot in raw.

Cricket, in overcast conditions (it's England...!). Nikon D3, 300mm f2.8 plus TC20E3 converter (= 600mm), 

1/1000sec @ f8, ISO 1800. This is the raw file, cropped to use and sharpened, but otherwise as rendered by

Aperture with no further processing. It looks "flat" here and when seen larger in Aperture, looks very 'flat". 

How you could leave this unadjusted, as some say they do with raws, is a puzzle. I wasn't putting in enough

contrast previously, but even then I knew this would have needed more...

For all the advantages of shooting in raw the biggest single disadvantage is that, if it allows you to process your own images, then obviously EVERY IMAGE YOU SHOOT NEEDS TO BE PROCESSED. There's no JPEG engine doing it for you, which means that decision have to be made on white balance, contrast, saturation, highlights and shadows etc etc etc.  Now, Adobe's ACR, Apple Aperture, Capture One and all sorts of other raw processors come with a set of default raw conversion settings, but what I've found is that these are really only a starting point. I certainly don't understand how anyone can say "they only check for dust spots and that's it for raws", since none of the raw converters really, really, make your files look like what was in front of the camera without you, the shooter, making some further decisions.

Indeed, although JPEGs are much-maligned by some, most decent modern DSLRs make a very good job indeed of rendering what the sensor saw as a useful JPEG - provided considerable care is taken at the shooting stage to get exposure and white balance correct. Most DSLRs also now let you change contrast, hue, saturation, sharpening and other settings for rendering JPEGs.

But there are still advantages to shooting raw, so it's worth knuckling down and learning what needs to be done.

More after the break...

Spitfire blue

A quickie post - again!

I was down at Whitstable yesterday, visiting my parents for  a very pleasant Sunday lunch, and the afternoon ritual of a walk with Small Dog around Long Rock, the shingle bank and open ground at Swalecliffe.

It was Whitstable Regatta weekend last weekend, and there's often a visit from aircraft which entertain the crowds on Tankerton slopes, looping and rolling out over the sea with fewer restrictions as to what they can do, especially height-wise. I picked up my gear as, although we we not going up to Tankerton, we might see something worth a picture from Swalecliffe.

As we left for the walk, a Spitfire arrived and displayed and I thought that was that, I'd missed it. However, as we were walking around Long Rock, both my dad and I realised we could hear a big aero-engine running, and I spotted a small but distinctive speck which looked like another Spitfire, orbiting overhead.

I grabbed out the works D7000, adding my TC20E3 and 70-200 f2.8, which gives an angle of view like a 600mm. It's best to try to keep some "spin" in the propellor blades, so I set 1/250 sec, VR on, +0.7 of a stop and fingers crossed. We still weren't sure if he was going to actually display, but he orbited back over land and we saw and heard him begin a shallow diving turn from the east.

And he went pretty much right overhead, which gave me the best picture - and certainly the closest - of the 10 minutes display.  I shot about 160 frames, and there's an awful lot that are lost because of trying to handhold an effective 600mm at 1/250th, even with VR, and there's a few dodgy framing, focus and exposure ones. But I've got five that I'm happy with, including one where I can read the registration, which allowed me to ID the 'plane and pilot for posterity.

But the best one was still from the sequence where he went right overhead to start his display...

Peter Teichman takes his Supermarine Spitfire PRXI, PL965, overhead to begin his display at Whitstable Regatta,
on Sunday 14th August 2011. This aircraft, a photo-reconnaissance version of the Spitfire, was built in 1944 and
is currently flown by Teichman from the former Battle of Britain RAF airfield at North Weald, Essex.
The image is uncropped: Nikon D7000, 70-200 f2.8 + TC20E3, 1/250th @ f11,
giving the angle of view of a 600mm.

I've deliberately left this uncropped, so you can see just how close I could get - there are two closer images; but in one the hint of blue sky has gone (damn!) and the other there's enough motion blur from dodgy panning that I haven't selected them as "top" versions. If I was to crop it I'd take a little from the left and bottom sides.